July Part 5: Slices of Life

Life goes by in the blink of an eye, and July was no exception. We tried taking it easy, but we had some catching up to do! Here's everything else we did (well, at least everything we took pictures of!)

We had a couple people comment that we were the only people they knew who went on a long vacation and lost weight instead of gaining it, which I thought was kind of funny. I did find that one of my favorite go-to summer skirts was much too big upon my return, but I also hadn't worn it since last summer, so this didn't just happen on our trip. 

I decided to bite the bullet and actually get big pool noodles. The dollar store ones are so wimpy, and it takes 5 just to keep someone floating, so I went hunting for a few good ones. I think I found this one at Target, and the kids loved having the big noodle at the pool. I regret not going to the pool more this summer. 

The kids were still mostly friends after being stuck together for 39 days. I'm not sure what is going on here, but based on Rachel's face, it was a friendly interaction, which I always love to see. 

We took the kids to one of our favorite new discoveries, Edna's in Lehi, for dinner. I love the atmosphere and the food! It's so good! We ate a ton of home cooked meals before we were ready to go to a restaurant again as a family--we missed that home cooking! 

Michael jumped right back into football, and he wished we could get him a nicer helmet, but we're too cheap to do it. That didn't stop him from trying one on when we were picking up cleats and receiver gloves though! 

My absolute favorite thing that happened in July was when Michael received his patriarchal blessing. It was an incredible experience, and I walked away with a renewed testimony of the fact that the Lord knows each of us individually. I'm so proud of the incredible person Michael is becoming.

Michael got creative with the lawn mowing. 

Michael wanted to check out an antique store in Springville, and while we were there, I found this beautiful secretary, and after a slight bit of bargaining and double checking measurements, we took it home! 

Brian got really fed up with Rachel's phone in Europe because she couldn't use some of the apps we needed to communicate with her on the cruises, and so we found a used mini iphone online and added her to our regular plan. She was really excited about having a smaller phone that would actually fit in her pocket. 

We busted out the level again to see if Gabe had passed Rachel in height, but she is still somehow hanging on. Unfortunately for her, I think she's hitting her last major growth spurt, and Gabe is just in his regular growing. Still, we've all been amazed that he hasn't passed her yet. 

We found an easy recipe for Mexican Street corn, and it was SOOOOO good. We need to make it again. 

And here's a random picture of Gabe! 

I was determined to do more hanging out outside reading this summer, so I did quite a bit of that. 

Brian and I went to the temple. 

Rachel went to three dance or dance/theater camps. Here's her "show your parents what we did this week" performance at Ballet West. 

We were excited to be back going to church with our neighbors again, and for some reason, that meant a weird piling into the car after church? Before church? What is happening here?

I felt a push to get Gabe into basketball, so I looked into putting him into a local club. The timing was perfect because they were having tryouts at the end of July. Gabe had never really played before, and it was so fun to see how much progress he made each day. 

His tryouts and skills camps were at the Pleasant Grove Rec Center, so I brought some headphones and walked the indoor track while he was at his camp/tryout. I liked the inspirational posters that were hung up there; it was motivating. 

I also loved being able to peak at Gabe down below. 

Michael and Rachel got to go to the temple with the youth group, and naturally I had to take a picture of them all dressed up. 

We got to see some beautiful views. 

and laugh together about nothing, which is everything. 

Brian and I went to go see the Play that Goes Wrong, and we loved it so much that we got tickets to bring the kids in August. Even the program was funny. 

Before the play, we had gone to test drive a Mazda CX-5. We knew we wanted/needed to get a third car by October. We wanted a smaller all-wheel drive SUV with a similar footprint to our Sonata so it would fit nicely in the garage. Previously, we test drove a Subaru Forester, Toyota Rav-4, as well as looking into other smaller SUVs. We weren't sure exactly what car, but we figured we would do some research when we had time. So, before heading to our show, we went to the Mazda dealership. We told our salesman that we were doing research, and the chances of us actually buying a car were very slim. So naturally, he took up that challenge and showed up with a used 2022 with the trim features we wanted at a really great price. We put down a deposit on it before we rushed to the play. 

After the play, we came back and sealed the deal. Side note: why does it take so long to buy a car?!

The kids were VERY surprised to see Brian roll home in a new car, almost as surprised as we were. 

This car projects your speed onto the windshield, but only the one driving it can see it, so Michael's showing Gabe where the number appears on the windshield. 

Michael was the most excited, and he immediately got to work evicting all of our stuff out of our Hyundai. We made it very clear that this isn't his car; it's a family car that he gets to drive. 

Everyone had fun exploring the new car. 

The feature that really sealed the deal was that the middle seat in the back can fold down without needing one of the side seats to fold down to. This meant that the snowboards and skis can go down the middle and Brian can take everyone up the mountain for skiing and snowboarding (hence the requirement for all-wheel drive). The back seats even have seat warmers to thaw them out after a day on the mountain. 

I decided that we needed a hammock, and used our reward points to buy one. I loved hanging out on the deck reading throughout the rest of the summer. As you can see, it's built for at least two, sometimes three plus the dog. 

We had dental appointments, and Michael came home with a kids toothbrush...on purpose. 

Michael was so excited to be back in his workshop again, and spent hours out there. 

Brian gets to hang out with Michael's church class (the priests), and one night, they played Bocce Ball. Brian is really proud of how well he did here, but as I have never played this game, I don't know what it means. 

Michael got thrown right into the business of football, and they took their team pictures in July--meeting at 5:45 a.m.! Here's the sophomore team. I heard that there were 60 boys on the team; that's more than were in my graduating class! 

Here are the receivers: 

And our favorite player, Michael. 

<Insert clever, sentimental and profound wrap up to July 2025 without saying, "And just like that, we blinked, and it was August">